Visualizing Changes In Opioid Treatment Policy

J Montgomery Maxwell

Mortality And Public Policy Data

We will be investigating data on the statewide increases in opioid overdose deaths during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding statewide changes in public health policy related to opioid use disorder treatment.

The opioid overdose mortality data for 2019 and 2020 comes from the CDC WONDER mortality dataset; using the multiple cause of death codes T40.0 (Opium), T40.1 (Heroin), T40.2 (Natural opioid analgesics), T40.3 (Methadone), T40.4 (Synthetic opioid analgesics other than methadone), and T40.6 (Other unspecified narcotics).

The data on statewide changes to opioid treatment policy during the COVID-19 pandemic are from NIDA-PDAPS hosted on the JCOIN data commons. In particular the datasets:

State Opioid Overdose Mortality Rates

In the following two images we can see the nation wide impact of the opioid epidemic. The first image is for the crude mortality rate (deaths/population) per 100 thousand residents. The second image is the percent increase in each state's mortality rate.

Listed below are the five regions with the highest mortality rates.

Listed below are the five regions with the highest percent increases in mortality rates. The data for Wyoming is missing because in 2019 no opioid overdose deaths were recorded using the CDC MCD codes. Additionally, the percent increase in overdose deaths may be artificailly inflated in some states due to changes in how each state records opioid overdose deaths.

Changes In State Opioid Treatment Policy

Here we look at three key features for U.S. States. The code name for the policy is listed at the end of each line.

In each of the following two images we will see the opioid overdose mortality rates for states who have approved the above changes in opioid treatment policy during the COVID-19 pandemic.